The Jeevanias

Later in the day he said to Banarsi, “If you want to live a man’s life, do not look for rich in-laws. Also do not get married before you can earn your living.” “Why should I get married at all?” “Everybody gets married and has children.” “How do they get children only if they get married?” “You don’t know?” “No!” Sulakhan Singh believed him. These two lads, one coming from the shop-keeping class and the other the son of a Brahmin, one married and the other not married, one mediocre in his studies and the other bordering on brilliance, one mature, staid, sturdy and somewhat dense; and the other mercurial, temperamental, immature and taking everything that came lightly were as different from one another as two boys could be. Yet they were drawn to each other. Sulakhan Singh believed Banarsi that he did not know the acts and facts of procreation. “Look here, my friend. If you do not know how children are born, you need not start learning yet a while,” said Sulakhan Singh. “Shouldn’t I know? When you married boys talk together you speak in a language which I can’t understand.” “Why should you understand these things when there is no need, yet?” “I am not all that ignorant, married men sleep with their wives.” “So do some men with their boys. Why don’t these men get children?” “Women are different.” “I know. They have breasts to feed children when they come.” “Have you seen a girl or even a baby girl without clothes?” “No. I don’t think so.” “You will see the difference when you see one.” Banarsi was the youngest of seven sons. He had lived in towns, in middle-class localities, where children were not allowed to go about undressed. Middle class had strict ideas of modesty. In fact it was immodest for girls to play with boys. He did not know the anatomical differences between boys and girls, men and women. He liked women. The women of his family were kinder, gentler and fussed over him. He had no mentors of his own age group to initiate him into the mysteries of procreation. He was not dull. The talk among young boys was of homosexuality. In school and later in college he knew who was ‘gone’ on whom, how the former spent money on the latter. In fact he was good at spotting the first signs of the development of this kind of relationship. He did not know that it was considered unnatural.